Thursday, June 19, 2014

after work






I stop the car along the pasture edge,
gather up bags of corncobs from the back,
and get out.
Two whistles, one for each,
and familiar sounds draw close in darkness—
cadence of hoof on hardened bottomland,
twinned blowing of air through nostrils curious, flared.
They come deepened and muscular movements
conjured out of sleep: each small noise and scent
heavy with earth, simple beyond communion,
beyond the stretched-out hand from which they calmly
take corncobs, pulling away as I hold
until the mid-points snap.
They are careful of my fingers,
offering that animal-knowledge,
the respect which is due to strangers;
and in the night, their mares' eyes shine, reflecting stars,
the entire, outer light of the world here.




~ Jane Hirshfield 
from Of Gravity and Angels



Sunday, June 15, 2014

reflected





Reflected
in the dragonfly's eye -
mountains.




Kobayashi Issa
(1763-1828)
from Zen Poetry: Let the Spring Breeze Enter
translated by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto





Friday, June 13, 2014

sea foam











Moment by moment you await understanding, 
spiritual perception, peace and good to arrive from nonexistence. 
Nonexistence, then, is God's factory from which He continually produces goods.

He has caused what is nonexistent to appear magnificently existent,
 while the truly existent He has caused to appear as nonexistent.
He has hidden the Sea, yet made the foam visible;
He has concealed the Wind, but displayed the dust.

The dust whirls in the air higher than a minaret: does it rise by itself? 
You see the dust borne high, but the Wind you don't see, although you can surmise it.

You see the white-capped waves tumbling in every direction, 
but without the Sea the foam has no way to move.
You see the foam by sense perception and the Sea by induction:
just as speech is manifest and thought is hidden.


~ Rumi
art by O'Keeffe


Saturday, June 7, 2014

the "I" creature and the moon






There’s a moon in my body, but I can't see it!
A moon and a sun.
A drum never touched by hands, beating, and I can’t hear it! 

As long as a human being worries about when he will die,
and what he has that is his, all of his works are zero.

When affection for the I-creature and what it owns is dead,
then the work of the Teacher is over.

The purpose of labor is to learn;
when you know it, the labor is over.

The apple blossom exists to create fruit; when that
comes, the petal falls.

The musk is inside the deer, but the deer does not
look for it: it wanders around looking for grass.



~ Kabir



no problem







The problem is there is no problem and
the problem solvers have nothing to do
so they start creating problems out
of thin air, out of nothing. Then the problem
is not to see that there are big problems
everywhere and it is woe unto
him or her who cannot see or who will
not acknowledge the problems—they become
part of the problem, a big part of it,
their apathy or obstinacy holding
progress back until they are educated
to the fact that, one, there are big problems,
and, two, if you are not part of solving
them then you represent the problem
the problem solvers have been talking about
all along. So you see now how it is:
there is no problem worse than no problem.





~ Kevin McCaffrey
 from Laughing Cult


Thursday, May 29, 2014

selective blindness









~ Margaret Heffernan



Sunday, May 18, 2014

when I heard






When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before
me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide
and measure them, 
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with
much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander' d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.





~  Walt Whitman

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

annunciation




It is not always joy
that is announced to you
in the mundane light.

Not always a wing
or a flood of new knowledge

delivering its atoms of change
to your body.
Sometimes it is

a wound delivered,
just as plainly as in those
paintings, her head tilted

up or down, in some angle
of understood responsibility.

No fanfare in the room
other than some structure inside
made flat

by what you have received,
the heart a putty-colored

folding chair knocked
to the ground.
And the room itself emptied,

this is part of the recognition.
The room a wound,
the light a wing on the floor,

the atoms of dust
in the shaft. And the quiet,
that is grief’s appetite.



~ Rick Barot
with thanks to Cerise Press
art by van gogh




Wednesday, May 7, 2014

without willing





Learn who it is within you who makes everything his own 
and says, “My God, my mind, my thought, my soul, my body.” 

Learn the sources of sorrow, joy, love, hate. 

Learn how it happens that one watches without willing, 
rests without willing, becomes angry without willing, 
loves without willing.




~ Hippolytus of Rome


Sunday, May 4, 2014

thirst and ... mirage





The appearance of water in a mirage persists after the fact that it is a mirage has dawned on us. 
So it is with the world. 

Though knowing it to be unreal, it continues to manifest - 
but we do not try to satisfy our thirst with the water of the mirage. 

As soon as one knows that it is a mirage, 
one gives it up as useless and does not run after it to get water. 




~ Ramana Maharshi




to give myself utterly






I want to give myself
utterly
as this maple
that burned and burned
for three days without stinting
and then in two more
dropped off every leaf;
as this lake that,
no matter what comes
to its green-blue depths,
both takes and returns it.

In the still heart that refuses nothing,
the world is twice-born—
two earths wheeling,
two heavens,
two egrets reaching
down into subtraction;
even the fish
for an instant doubled,
before it is gone.
I want the fish.

I want the losing it all
when it rains and I want
the returning transparence.
I want the place
by the edge-flowers where
the shallow sand is deceptive,
where whatever
steps in must plunge,
and I want that plunging.

I want the ones
who come in secret to drink
only in early darkness,
and I want the ones
who are swallowed.

I want the way
the water sees without eyes,
hears without ears,
shivers without will or fear
at the gentlest touch.

I want the way it
accepts the cold moonlight
and lets it pass,
the way it lets
all of it pass
without judgment or comment.

There is a lake,
Lalla Ded sang, no larger
than one seed of mustard,
that all things return to.
O heart, if you
will not, cannot, give me the lake,
then give me the song.





~ Jane Hirshfield
art by Georgia O'Keeffe


Saturday, May 3, 2014

wisdom of a storyteller







~ Elif Shafak


work song - part 2 a vision






If we will have the wisdom to survive,
to stand like slow growing trees
on a ruined place, renewing, enriching it...
then a long time after we are dead
the lives our lives prepare will live
here, their houses strongly placed
upon the valley sides...
The river will run
clear, as we will never know it...
On the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down
the old forest, an old forest will stand,
its rich leaf-fall drifting on its roots.
The veins of forgotten springs will have opened.
Families will be singing in the fields...
Memory,
native to this valley, will spread over it
like a grove, and memory will grow
into legend, legend into song, song
into sacrament. The abundance of this place,
the songs of its people and its birds,
will be health and wisdom and indwelling
light. This is no paradisal dream.
Its hardship is its reality.




~ Wendell Berry
art by Andrew Wyeth


Thursday, May 1, 2014

the holy longing





Tell a wise person, or else keep silent 
for the massman will mock it right away. 
I praise what is truly alive, 
what longs to be burned to death.

In the calm waters of the love-nights 
where you were begotten, where you have begotten, 
a strange feeling comes over you 
when you see the silent candle burning.

Now you are no longer caught 
in this obsession with darkness, 
and a desire for higher love-making 
sweeps you upward.

Distance does not make you falter, 
now, arriving in magic, flying, 
and, finally, insane for the light, 
you are the butterfly and you are the light.

And so long as you haven’t experienced 
this: to die and so to grow, 
you are only a troubled guest 
on the dark earth. 






~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
translation by Robert Bly



do not be ashamed





You will be walking some night
in the comfortable dark of your yard
And suddenly a great light will shine
round about you, and behind you
will be a wall you never saw before.
It will be clear to you suddenly
that you were about to escape,
And that you are guilty: you misread
The complex instructions, you are not
a member, you lost your card
or never had one. And you will know
that they have been there all along,
Their eyes on your letters and books,
their hands in your pockets,
their ears wired to your bed.
Though you have done nothing shameful.
They will want you to be ashamed.
They will want you to kneel and weep
and say you should have been like them.
And once you are ashamed,
reading the page they hold out to you,
Then such light as you have made
In your history will leave you.
They will no longer need to pursue you,
You will pursue them, begging forgiveness.
They will not forgive you.
There is no power against them.
It is only candor that is aloof from them,
only an inward clarity, unashamed,
that they cannot reach. Be ready.
When their light has picked you out
and their questions are asked, say to them:
“I am not ashamed.” A sure horizon
will come around you. The heron will begin
his evening flight from the hilltop.



~ Wendell Berry
from Antiques and Collectibles